Precision glass processing and PARMS for the efficient manufacturing of advanced and miniaturized optical components

Plasma-assisted reactive magnetron sputtering (PARMS) in combination with a sophisticated optical broad-band monitoring (BBM) allows the deposition of dense layers of dielectric materials with very high process stability and layer thickness accuracy, yielding hard dielectric coatings with excellent spectral, mechanical, and chemical stability and durability.

Various glass processing and assembly processes are used for turning the PARMS coated plates into assembled products like polarizing beamsplitters for medicinal imaging applications or RGB-combiners for augmented reality components (some examples in Fig. 1). Parts of these types typically have coatings on different external as well as internal surfaces. Coatings are often required to extend to the edges of a component and features like apertures or color markings have to be applied.

Fig. 1: Examples of beam splitter